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William Morrissey, 33, who was a Throop resident when he was originally arrested last year but is now listed by authorities as living on Seymour Street in Auburn, was arraigned March 15 on a newly unsealed Cayuga County Grand Jury indictment. The indictment charges Morrissey, who used to be an officer with the Auburn Police Department and a school resource officer at the high school, with second-degree criminal contempt, a misdemeanor. Cayuga County District Attorney Brittany Grome Antonacci told ÈËÊÞÐÔ½» Tuesday that Morrissey was in front of Cayuga County Court Judge Thomas Leone for the arraignment.

The indictment alleges Morrissey added the alleged victim in the sexual abuse case on the messaging app Snapchat "by search" in October, violating an order of protection the victim had against him. Grome Antonacci said Leone remanded Morrissey to jail.

Morrissey is currently being held in Wayne County Jail, according to the . Grome Antonacci said requests for a defendant in custody to be held in another county's jail typically come from defense attorneys. Morrissey's lawyer, George Hildebrandt, could not be reached for comment.

Morrissey was arrested by the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office on March 3, 2022, following an investigation started the day before at the APD's request. At the time, the sheriff's office said Morrissey engaged in "repeated inappropriate conduct with a student occurring in and around the City of Auburn including Auburn High School where he was serving as a School Resource Officer." He was charged at the time with first-degree sexual abuse, a class D felony, and official misconduct and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors. A different indictment handed down by a grand jury in July added a count of disseminating indecent material, a class D felony.

The indictment from July alleged that in February 2022, Morrissey subjected a child who was 14 years of age at the time "to sexual contact by forcible compulsion when he grabbed her hand and placed it on his penis." In describing the disseminating indecent material count, that indictment said Morrissey "engaged in video call conversations with (the underaged victim) which were sexually explicit in nature."

Auburn City Court Judge David Thurston denied a request from George Hildebrandt, Morrissey's attorney, to dismiss the felony sexual abuse charge on March 8, 2022. The APD announced later that month that Morrissey had been fired and that "a result of the internal investigation into this alleged relationship with the minor student, it was determined that overwhelming evidence exists to support that Morrissey was in fact pursuing and engaging in a relationship with the student." The department previously said that upon being made aware of the allegations against Morrissey, he was immediately removed from school grounds and suspended from employment. He was hired as a police officer March 2016 and was assigned to the Auburn Enlarged City School District as a school resource officer in 2018.

Grome Antonacci noted Morrissey has an evidence suppression hearing set for 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 28. She also added that the defense and the prosecution would be making motions related to the contempt charge at a separate proceeding. A trial date has not been set yet.